Mid-term camp

On the 10th-13th of February we had our mid-term camp. Before the camp I was not especially happy about having a 4 day camp in a center with mostly German-speaking persons, almost no space, no hot water and more or less bad food.

But it turned out to be a lot of fun! The food was good, we had more space than the last time, people were good at speaking English or Spanish (all seminars and activities were in Spanish. Yes, you are expected to learn Spanish here. And as someone who arrived with no knowledge of Spanish, I can say that Ecuador is great for learning Spanish!) and we had hot water.

We had a lot of seminars helping us to reflect upon the past 6 months and what we want to change during the last six months to have the best stay in Ecuador.
A question we had to answer that I liked a lot was "What would you wish that your friends and family at home would understand about your stay in Ecuador?". A really good question, because my friends and family seem so far away and Ecuador is another world!

We also talked about our projects, talked with the staff from VASE about our projects and families and we talked about the millennial goals, why they have not been reached yet and what we can do to meet these goals soon.

On my pre-departure camp in Denmark I wrote a letter for the mid-term camp as well and I had written a lot of questions for self-reflection, which was really good for thinking about what I want to do in my last six months. But it was also full of speculations as I hardly knew anything at the time! And then I wrote a new letter for the final camp in the end of June.

And the highlight of the camp? A chiva!!! A chiva is a type of open party bus that you drive around the city in. This was lots of fun and we drove around for 2 hours (the Ecuadorians and everybody else had a hard time believing me, when I told them them that we do the same thing for 12 hours in Denmark when we graduate high school!).

Mid-term camp
Halvvejscamp

Chiva!

Chiva!

Chiva!

Den 10.-13. februar havde vi vores halvvejscamp. Inden var jeg bestemt ikke begejstret over udsigten til at skulle bo 4 dage i et lukket center, fyldt med tysktalende mennesker, ingen plads, intet varmt vand og dårlig mad.

Men campen endte med at blive rigtig godt. Maden var god, der var mere plads  i værelserne end sidst, der blev mest snakket engelsk eller spansk (alle aktiviteter foregik på spansk. Det er forventet at du lærer spansk hernede og som en person der ankom uden at kunne et eneste ord spansk, kan jeg sige, at det er sandt) og derudover havde vi også varmt vand!

Vi havde en masse seminarer, der skulle hjælpe os med at reflektere over de sidste 6 måneder og finde ud af hvad vi gerne vil gøre anderledes i de følgende 6 måneder.
Et af de bedste spørgsmål vi snakkede om i løbet af campen var ifølge mig "Hvad ville du ønske at din familie og dine venner ville forstå omkring dit ophold i Ecuador?". Fordi Ecuador er en helt anden verden og mine venner og min familie virker meget langt væk.

Vi snakkede også med VASE omkring vores projekter og familier, vi snakkede om 2015 målene, hvorfor de endnu ikke er blevet opfyldt, og hvad vi kan gøre for at opfylde dem snarest muligt.

På forberedelsescampen i Danmark skrev jeg et brev til mig selv, som jeg åbnede på campen. Det fungerede rigtig godt for at få mig selv til at reflektere over hvad jeg gerne vil have ændrer sig i de næste 6 måneder. Men det var også sjovt at læse, da jeg skrev det et halvt år inden afrejse, hvor jeg ingenting vidste! Jeg benyttede mig derudover også af muligheden for at skrive et brev til vores sidste camp.

Og det bedste ved hele campen? En chiva! En chiva er en åben festvogn (ligesom de vogne vi kører rundt i, når vi bliver studenter i Danmark) og du kører rundt i byen med den. Vi kørte i 2 timer (og ecuadorianerne og alle andre havde svært ved at forestille sig, at vi gør det samme i Danmark i 12 timer, når vi bliver studenter!).